As a kid growing up in Pittsburgh, Jewell Parker Rhodes was the one who always had a book in her hands. Books were better than dolls, she writes on her website, better than food. It’s no wonder she wrote her first children’s book while still in elementary school. She illustrated it and shared it with her [ Read the full article… ]
I was in my 20s when I received a book that would change my life — Something Beautiful by Sharon Dennis Wyeth. That was my first time seeing an African-American girl on the cover of a picture book. Entranced, I read page after page until I reached the end. Then, I smiled, stroked the cover and read it again. [ Read the full article… ]
Lynn Joseph was born in Trinidad and was raised in a family of three children by a mother who loved books, and who read Shakespeare to her and her sister Christine, as bedtime stories. Lynn, like most writers, loved to read and she remembers her very first book, a collection of Grimm Fairy Tales with [ Read the full article… ]
For this interview, I studied Vanessa’s website and sorted through her artwork, looking for just the right words to use in an introduction. I failed, big-time. Words like “charming,” “fresh,” and “retro” came to mind—boring words that didn’t do her art justice. I fretted for days. I care about my work here, and I wanted [ Read the full article… ]
From exploring her rich experience of having a mother and grandmother from two different cultures to celebrating the roots and rhythms of gospel music, Toyomi Igus infuses her work with meaning. A former editor and publications director for UCLA’s Center for African-American Studies, Igus has been writing for kids since the early ’90s. Her mission as a children’s book author is to “generate work that [ Read the full article… ]
“This was my first book and it came about by accident,” says Charles R. Smith, Jr. regarding his first book for children, Rimshots: Basketball Pix, Rolls and Rhythms (Dutton, 1999). In the years that have followed this work of happenstance, Smith has written, or photo-illustrated (or both!) more than 20 titles for young readers, including: Hoop [ Read the full article… ]
Tonya C. Hegamin is an author that refuses to be penned down to one category. She has degrees in both poetry (from the University of Pittsburgh) and in creative writing (from the New School University). She’s penned both picture books (Most Loved In All The World, Houghton Mifflin, 2008) and novels. And even within her [ Read the full article… ]
Here’s my sure-fire way to test if a new picture book sings. I read it to my daughter. She’s a tell-it-like-it-is sort of girl. If it’s boring, she’ll let me know flat out before moving on to other things. When Olu’s Dream (HarperCollins, 2009) arrived, she excitedly checked out the cover. She flipped through the pages. “Can [ Read the full article… ]